Plato (c. 427 BC – c. 347 BC)
Related: Greece - philosopy - The Symposium
The general idea of sexual desire as a response to the embodiment of our values is reminiscent of Socrates's speech in Plato's Symposium (388 BC-367 BC). --via Ayn Rand's Wikipedia page [Aug 2006]
Biography
Plato (c. 427 BC – c. 347 BC) was an immensely influential classical Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, writer, and founder of the Academy in Athens.
Plato, a philodorian, lectured extensively at the Academy but he also wrote on many philosophical issues. His presence survives through his written philosophical/dramatic compositions which are preserved in manuscripts recovered and edited in many different editions and translations since the birth of the Humanist movement. The written corpus of Plato consists almost entirely of dialogues, epigrams and letters. All the known dialogues of Plato survive, however modern-day standard editions of his oeuvre generally contain dialogues considered by the consensus of scholars to be either suspect (e.g., Alcibiades, Clitophon) or probably spurious (such as Demodocus, or the Second Alcibiades).
The personage of Socrates often makes an appearance in the dialogues of Plato though it is unclear how much of the content and argument of any given dialogue is Socrates' point of view, and how much of it Plato's.
There is a prominent crater on the Moon named the Plato crater, in his honor. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato [Feb 2005]